![]() That bridge, at first privately owned, carried state Highway 2, the Sunset Highway. The first bridge to carry a state highway across the Columbia was completed at Wenatchee in 1908. This was the first general-purpose bridge, as it also was used by wagons, foot passengers, and to cross livestock. A railroad bridge was completed at Northport, Washington, eight miles south of the international border, in October 1897. Its completion meant that transcontinental passenger trains no longer had to ferry across the river. It reopened in April 1888 as a temporary structure and then permanently in July. A railroad bridge at Pasco was completed in December 1887 and quickly damaged by ice. The first Columbia River bridges were built in the late 1800s, both in British Columbia and in the United States. Ferries provided the only means of crossing the river from the mid 1800s until the first bridges were constructed. Most of the bridges over the Columbia were built at or near the sites of ferry crossings. Some of these are open to the public and some are not. The list also does not include roadways over dams, such as those at Grand Coulee, Keenleyside and several others. Those bridges, and also all railroad bridges, are not included in the following list. Not all of the bridges in British Columbia are open to the public, however, as some are operated by the provincial Ministry of Forestry. There are 24 crossings - 21 bridges and three ferries - of the Columbia in the United States, and, coincidentally, the identical number in British Columbia - 21 bridges and three ferries. But there is a certain intrigue of history and place in the 48 Columbia crossings between Astoria, Oregon, and Fairmont, British Columbia, if only for their impressive size, large or small, and their often dramatic settings. The bridges of Columbia Country are not nearly as romantic as the bridges of Madison County, and there is no romantic plot to give their story a heartthrob element. November 2018 update: Added interactive Google map of all bridges. ![]()
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